“Uhm... Excuse me?” A small frail figure peeked in to the dojo. “Is this the Karate Club?” Yano Yoshihiro asked, carefully walking in.

“Come.” A shirtless beast of a guy with scars etched across his back and arms responded. His deep voice alone was enough to cause Yano to want to immediately flee.

Yano took a deep gulp as the door closed behind him. Taking a deep breath, Yano gathered his nerves and walked forward even though he wanted nothing more than to run away and act like this never happened. He shivered with each step he took. The unbearable feeling increased the more he walked towards the shirtless guy.

“Why do you want to join the Karate Club?” He asked, his voice penetrating through his skin and bones.

“I...” Yano felt ashamed to admit his true purpose of being here.

But if he didn’t take the first step to help himself, his life would never change. His mom would continue to ask him questions about the bruises and wounds he received at school. His childhood friend won’t stop standing up for him and getting involved in his business. And the pain he receives 5 days out of the week will only continue. It was time things changed. High School should be the time of his life or at least that’s what everyone says it should be.

“I want to become stronger! I hate being weak and cowardly! I hate having to rely on others. I hate not being able to speak my mind out of fear. I want to be true to myself and the only way I can do that is by being strong enough to protect myself!” Yano shouted with all his heart.

Normally he would never get this worked up but somehow seeing the powerful back of the guy in front of him filled him with admiration and respect. This was a true man! There was no portion of his body that Yano could see that wasn’t filled with muscle and strength. He was envious! Yano wanted to be just like him!

“Tell me your name.” He asked, slowly standing up.

“Yano. Yano Yoshihiro.” Yano figured he had to be at least 190 centimeters tall!

“Show me your resolve Yano. Spar with me and I will see if your fists align with your heart.” He turned towards him, revealing a rather terrifying lightning-shaped scar going down his chest along with several smaller ones near it.

If he didn’t have so many scars and such a scary face, Yano would definitely say that this guy would be the perfect man in appearance alone.

“Spar? But I don’t know how to fight... That’s kind of why I want to join the club... and learn...” He meekly spoke. Yano also felt if he was tapped once by this guy he would crumble apart into nothingness.

“Give me everything you have. Imagine me as the people that made you come to this club in the first place.” He told him.

“I don’t know if I can really do that...”

“Quit hesitating and come already! I won’t retaliate. Just show me what you got.”

Yano realized from his words that this was his last chance. If he didn’t do what he said, he would possibly be kicked out and never get the chance to better himself. He already tried all the other martial arts clubs. Most of them just wanted him to be the training dummy for the other students and didn’t want to seriously teach him anything. The rest turned him away at the door after seeing his physique. This was his genuine last shot at changing his life around.

It wasn’t for no reason that Yano picked this club last. Despite the school year just starting, it was already infamous with outrageous rumors surrounding it. In one week, a single freshman singlehandedly decimated the entire Karate Club and scared off the rest of the members from ever returning. The few days after that, many of the other martial arts clubs came to investigate the rumors to see the mysterious karate freshman only to be sent to the hospital for severe injuries after picking a fight. But that wasn’t all, in a karate meet involving several other high schools in the city, he was said to have defeated every opponent without taking a single hit in the spars.

With an existence as frightening as this, it was very obvious to why Yano decided to come here last. If someone like this decided to use him as a sparring dummy, then he could only hope that his mother and father receive his corpse in decent condition. But if he was able to receive proper training from someone like this... Wouldn’t it be the same as going under a living rebirth?!

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Here I come!” Yano closed his eyes and ran forward with his fist raised back.

“Open your eyes fool! How can you see your opponent if your eyes are closed!?” He roared.

Yano’s eyes were frightened into opening on their own from the force within the dude’s voice. His courage whittled more and more as he got closer to the monster in human skin. Until Yano looked into his eyes and saw a certain emotion in them that bothered him... It annoyed him.

“Don’t look down on me, you worthless jerks!” Yano struck the karate club captain in the face with everything he had.

In the next second, he dropped to his knees screaming while holding his injured fist. The karate club captain looked at him without any signs of injury. Yano felt like he was wronged. No one told him how much it hurt to punch other people! Why didn’t those bastards ever look like they were in pain when they hit him?

“Well done. Your application to join the Karate Club has been accepted. Come back here tomorrow two hours before school starts and immediately after school for training.”

“I... I passed...?” His fist was still in much pain, but this great news was almost enough to distract him from it.

“Go visit the nurse’s office for that hand. You’re excused for today on account of your injury but don’t expect to get off this easily in the future for a small wound like that.”

‘He considers something like this small?’ Yano felt like his hand was fractured in multiple places! When he punched him earlier, he questioned if he was punching a rock or metal in the shape of a human!

“Yes sir... Before I go, can I get your name?” Yano asked.

“Miyagawa Katsu. Just call me Captain for now.” Katsu told him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Captain.” Yano bowed before leaving the dojo that could fit several dozen students.

Katsu stood alone in the dojo.

“I know you’re out there. Come in already.” Katsu spoke to the air.

“Looks like I was caught...” A feminine voice came from the entrance.

She opened the door and came inside. An adult woman dressed in a black suit and a long black skirt to match that went all the way down to her ankles. As she made her way toward Katsu, she adjusted her tightly-fitted glasses and smiled at him in a playful manner. Katsu cared for none of this.

“Don’t you have better things to do than concerning yourself with me, Kyoko?” Katsu coldly asked.

“Well, I'm sorry for caring about the well-being of the students that I teach.” She stuck out her tongue.

“You’re better off worrying about yourself.” He told her.

“Anyways! I see you finally got someone to join the club. I told you putting up a poster would work!” She took pride in this.

“Just because someone joined, doesn’t mean they’ll stay. He has potential but you need more than just potential to become strong.”

“Oooh, he has potential huh? He looked kind of hopeless from what I saw.”

“Tch. What kind of instructor are you?”

“I mean didn’t you see the way he threw that punch? It was like he never seen anyone throw a proper punch before! I almost laughed but I felt so bad for him.”

“Shut up and get out. I won’t accept anyone badmouthing my student behind his back in front of me.”

“Yes captain!” She mocked while giggling before leaving.

“Such an annoying woman.”

______________________________________________

“I’ve been looking all over for you Yoshi-kun! Why haven’t you been answering my messages!? I was so worried!” Fujiwara Susumu stood next to the bed.

“Sorry Susumu-chan. I kind of been out of it.” Yano lied.

After being accepted under Miyagawa-san, he’s been thinking of a lot of things. Some good, some scary, and some confusing. He hasn’t really had time to focus on Susumu. Yano felt that he should apologize because she did look pretty worried about him.

“What happened to you? How did you end up here?” She asked.

“I joined the karate club.” Yano gave a weak smile. “And this is my Badge of Honor.” He rose his bruised fist.

“You joined the karate club?” She looked at him in confusion. “Is this because of them...?” Fujiwara suddenly realized.

“No! I was just interested in karate. That’s all.” Yano obviously lied.

“Are those guys messing with you again? I told you to tell me the next time they put their hands on you. I’ll go straight to the principal and tell on all of them right after this!”

“Shut up!” Yano exclaimed. “I mean... Please stop getting involved in my personal business. Who I get involved with is none of your business.”

Yano could tell with a single glance that he hurt Susumu’s feelings. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to say sorry for yelling at her. But he knew that she wouldn’t get it unless he said it in the way he did. Hopefully she would leave him alone until he got strong enough to deal with his own problems like a man.

Matsubara and his goons wouldn’t let her off even if she was one of the top students in the school. It was because of them that Yano felt pushed to join the karate club at all. He knew that if Susumu continued to stand up for him and threaten to expose the acts of Matsubara and them, they would target her. Yano could never forgive himself if he allowed her to get hurt because of him. He’d rather suffer alone than bring her into it. But if he could not suffer at all, that’d be great too.